


just hope no one remembers these, the darkest of my days

by thepalebluedot



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, mentions of drug abuse and rehab, mentions of jack/kent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepalebluedot/pseuds/thepalebluedot
Summary: Jack has a lot of downtime in rehab. It gives him too much time to think.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	just hope no one remembers these, the darkest of my days

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by The Front Bottoms' song The Plan (Fuck Jobs). I was going to put a few specific lyrics in the notes here but realized I couldn't chose just a few, so [here](https://genius.com/The-front-bottoms-the-plan-fuck-jobs-lyrics) is the genius link to the lyrics. Also, I wrote the first 3/4 of it about 4 years ago and decided to finish it now in an attempt to get over writer's block. So it is indeed unbetaed. Anyways. Enjoy.

“Don’t read it,” Kent says, face pressed into Jack’s stomach. “Any of it.”

Jack’s hand stills, but he leaves his fingers tangled in Kent’s hair. “You do.”

“Yeah. It never helps.”

\- 

It’s not supposed to make them feel better; it’s supposed to help them know where they stand, to help them plan for the next few years.

Jack reads an article analyzing the top two draft prospects. Zimmermann and Parson. Kent was right; it doesn’t help. His stomach hurts for hours afterwards. 

-

Jack’s lying on his hotel bed channel surfing and trying not to think when he hears the electronic sound of the door unlocking. Kent flops down next to him and rests his head on Jack’s shoulder, scrolling through his phone. 

Kent snorts. “Look what Mort sent,” he says, shoving his phone in Jack’s face. 

It’s an article from some shitty hockey gossip website asking its audience if they Jack Zimmermann and Kent Parson are fucking. Jack sighs. He knows without reading the article that it’s all speculation based on some picture of them hugging pulled off Twitter. It’s all for the drama, for the traffic to their website. 

Jack rolls his eyes and shoves at Kent’s head and wonders what the headlines would be if they found out it was true. 

-

There’s a cardinal, unspoken rule of fame: never google yourself. Never read the comments, never read the articles. There’s a reason Jack doesn’t have a twitter. 

He has a lot of downtime in rehab.

-

There’s a common room with a hub of computers in the middle, a line of phones on one wall, and scattered clusters of tables and couches. 

The computers are monitored. There’s someone in a room somewhere drinking cheap coffee and watching, making sure no one is looking up ways to take the screens out of the windows or pick the locks on the doors to the stairwells. 

Jack isn’t sure if anything is blocked, but he hasn’t done anything besides log into Netflix. He watches documentaries on American history and World War II movies with a 27 year old named Marissa. She’s staying two doors down from him and makes fun of him for being a history nerd, but she never suggests anything else to watch. 

They’re both kind of stuck, but she could still probably be doing something better with her time than watching historical dramas with a 19 year old junkie. Jack doesn’t ask. 

-

“Jack. Pills,” is all he ever says in group therapy. He knows, objectively, that he’s an addict. He knows that calling it “self-medicating” had been bullshit. An excuse. But he still can’t bring himself to say, “Hi, I’m Jack, and I’m an addict,” out loud, because they were prescription drugs. They helped. 

He didn’t feel high, at least not at first. He felt normal. He felt less anxious. The pills did what they were supposed to, until the end, the year before the draft. Even then, he didn’t really recognize it as a high until he went cold turkey. 

-

“Pills?” Marissa asks him one night when she finds him sitting in the dark common room, blue light from the computer screen flickering across his face. 

He can’t sleep. He’s sick of doing nothing. He misses the ice. He misses his mom, and he misses Kent. He’s re-watching one of the documentaries about D-Day, and it’s pretty fucking depressing, but it gives him something else to focus on. He’s not really sure if he’s allowed to be doing this, but no one’s showed up yet to stop him.

“Anxiety,” he says, and she doesn’t respond. He keeps eyes focused on the screen so he doesn’t have to watch her reaction. She drags over one of the armchairs and sits down, tucking her knees up under her chin. Jack keeps sitting there through all the credits. He sits there staring blankly at the screen until the “You might also enjoy” titles show up and Marissa shuts down the computer for him. 

They don’t say anything as they walk back to their rooms. It helped, her being there. It was nice not being alone. He doesn’t know how to bring it up, doesn’t even know if he should thank her. But she didn’t have to stay, didn’t have to sit there at three in the morning and watch a depressing history channel special, so he thinks that maybe she gets it anyways. 

-

Marissa has one-on-one therapy today, and Jack misses Kent. He misses playing. He can’t stand not knowing. 

He types in “Jack Zimmermann” and his fingers freeze over the keys, because the autofill options are “Jack Zimmermann hockey” and “Jack Zimmermann overdose” and “Jack Zimmermann draft” and “Jack Zimmermann and Kent Parson.” 

He can’t breathe. He sits there, frozen, and stares at the screen. 

“Don’t read it,” Kent’s voice echoes in his head. “Any of it.”

-

The first things that show up are the headlines. 

“Bad Bob Zimmermann’s Son Withdraws From Draft, Suspected Overdose.”

“Parson to Las Vegas, Zimmermann to Rehab.”

“Kent Parson: New Hope for the NHL.”

-

Jack knows he should stop there. Knows he should close out of the windows, shut the whole thing down. He should go find a counselor. 

He’s never been all that great at doing what’s good for him. 

-

“Bob Zimmermann could not be reached for comment, but we can only imagine the disappointment over the faux-start of his son’s career.”

-

“Bad Bob Zimmermann’s son” and “drug overdose” and “couldn’t be reached for comment.”

Jack let down the league. He fucked up the draft. First and second pick. 

He doesn’t feel any better, but at least now he knows. 

-

He should shut it down and go find a counselor. 

He reads the articles. He starts with the reliable ones from the legitimate news and sports networks. They all say “drug overdose” and “alleged addiction.”

None of them mention the pills. 

He still ends up in the comments, in the click bait and shitty tabloids, and his throat feels tight. 

For some reason, “I never even did cocaine,” is the only thing running on a loop through his head.

-

Marissa finds him an hour later, staring blankly at “Canada’s Prodigal Son Breaks Down, Can’t Handle the Pressure.”

She must not know, because she sits down next to him and starts reading. She scrolls all the way down to the end, and he doesn’t stop her.

“Jesus, Jack.” 

Jack keeps his eyes on the screen. He can’t look at her. All he can bring himself to say is, “I never even did cocaine.”

-

He hardly sleeps the next two nights. It shows. 

His therapist is worried. He wonders if she knows what he did and is just waiting for him to bring it up himself. He should tell her. He’s here because he’d just kept his mouth shut and told himself it would pass, told himself everything would be fine. He’s here to talk about it. It’s just so damn hard to find the words. It all seems so irrational when he tries to say it out loud. 

-

He doesn’t bring it up in group. 

Marissa gives him disappointed looks from across the lopsided circle of chairs. He avoids her eyes as he says his two words and nothing else. 

-

His therapist smiles when he tells her. It’s probably the first time he’s told her anything unprompted.

She reminds him that the tabloids don’t matter. They aren’t true, and besides that, they aren’t credible. Jack knows this, but just simply knowing it doesn’t really help. People still read them. 

She reminds him that the only people whose opinions really matter are his family and friends. The people he cares about and the people that care about him. He wanders back to his room thinking about how it’s not a very long list. 

-

When he gets out of rehab, he avoids checking his phone for three days until his Dad gently suggests he at least reply to the personal ones. 

Jack doesn’t want to read sympathetic texts from his old teammates and coaches. He doesn’t know if it’s worse to reply months after it happened, when they’ll know he’s fresh out of rehab, or to not reply at all. 

It takes him two weeks to go through them all, mostly because he only can manage to do a few at a time, but he sends back polite thank yous. His parents didn’t raise him to be rude. 

-

He has dozens of voicemails from Kent. They stop a few weeks into rehab. Kent must have given up. He hasn’t listened to them, doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to bring himself to. He should apologize, really apologize, not a stuttered one over his dad’s phone in a hospital bed. He should call Kent and tell him he’s sorry for everything, tell him it had nothing to do with him, it wasn’t his fault, but he knows he won’t, not for a while. 

It still feels raw. Kent deserves better. They both deserve better. 

He sends him a text that reads, “I’m sorry for everything.” He can’t bring himself to say anything else. 

-

Kent calls the next day, and Jack watches it ring. 

He doesn’t leave a message. 

-

Jack watches NHL Network with his mom. He wonders if Kent watches it too, wonders if he listens to what the sports analysts in their headsets and three piece suits have to say about him. 

Bad Bob Zimmermann still comes up sometimes in passing, as a comparison to current players, as one of the greats from the old days. 

Jack Zimmermann doesn’t. 

-

Jack doesn’t talk about rehab. It was good for him, he won’t deny that, but he only ever talks about it occasionally with his parents or his therapist.

He thinks about rehab as he reads his acceptance letter to Samwell. He hasn’t shared a room with anyone since roadies in the Q, and even then it was just him and Kent. He didn’t share a room with another patient in rehab, but they did share a hall. There was still a sense of community. 

He wonders if he should request a single. Whether it would be worse to share a room with a stranger or to be stuck with no one but himself. 

-

He doesn’t know Marissa’s phone number, or her email address, or her last name. He hasn’t seen her since he got out. She considered them friends. She was good company, easy to be around. She was his first friend since Kent, probably. He’ll probably never see her again. 

He’s lying in his dorm bed his first night at Samwell, feet just barely hanging off the edge. He wonders how she’s doing now. 

-

“Jack Zimmermann to College” is what the headlines said after his agent released his statement. Underneath the headlines was speculation about whether he’d be playing in the NCAA or whether he was leaving hockey behind him. 

He remembers when the headlines about him were mostly good things, when tone was more excited than doubtful. It’s been a long time since then. 

-

He’s sitting in a bar with his team, frozen in place while someone on Sports Central compares him to Lindsey Lohan, and he thinks, “I’ll never be enough.”

No matter what he does, he’ll never be enough. Until he proves himself, until he signs and gets the C on an NHL team and brings home the cup, he won’t be enough. Rehab has been following him for years. He’s done good things since then. Coaching meant something. This team, sitting next to him and loudly bitching out the announcer, means something. Rehab was only a short period of time; a few months compared to the years he’s dedicated to this game. 

He walks outside and sits on the curb. He wants to call his dad. He wants to call Kent. He wants to call fucking Ron the sports analysist and ask him if anything he ever does will be enough. 

He sits on the curb and tries to steady his breathing. He gets it now, he thinks. Don’t read it. Any of it. It never helps. 

It’ll never stop getting to him. He knows that. But he can’t avoid it. He has to hear it and deal with it and pretend like it doesn’t keep him up at night. The professional opinions matter. 

He thinks about the boys inside, about Shitty, who will defend him until the day he dies. Ransom and Holster who have his back, who fight anyone who says something bad about him. Lardo and her quiet understanding and companionship. Even Bitty, whose opinions of Jack are based entirely on the time spent with him on this team, who didn’t know anything about him going in, but seems to be warming up to him anyways. 

Their opinions matter too, he knows. It’s just hard to focus on them when there are dozens on hundreds on thousands of other opinions of him. 

“Jack?” Shitty’s voice says behind him. He stays quiet, but Shitty continues, “You okay, man? Well, stupid question. That was some bullshit.” 

Shitty plops down next to him on the curb. Jack stares at the asphalt in front of him. 

“So that sucked,” Shitty says with feeling. “But you’re a fucking stellar hockey player and a great teammate and a great friend. And don’t you forget that.” 

Jack’s eyes burn, for some reason. He manages a nod, eyes still fixed on the pavement. 

“Anyways, Holster’s loud ass is trying to get the channel changed. Bitty, sensible boy he is, offered to settle our tab so we can get the fuck out of here.” 

Jack’s chest tightens. Everyone was having a good time, and he had to go and ruin it; he needs to get over himself and go back inside and grow thicker skin. 

“It’s fine, really,” he manages. “I just,” he says, then stops. He just needed a minute. Or twenty. Or to crawl under the table and melt into the floor and never return. 

“Place is lame anyways,” Shitty says, even though they’ve been here before and the drinks are relatively cheap and the pizza is decent. “Besides, I already gave Bitty my beer to finish, and Ransom and Holster will take any excuse to chug. They’re splitting yours, I think. But I’ll buy you a six pack on the way home, ‘cause all we have at the Haus is Natty Light and that shit is objectively terrible.” 

Shitty’s phone vibrates, and he falls silent. 

“Thank you,” Jack says quietly. 

Shitty leans into him and bumps their shoulders together. “Got your back.” 

Ransom, Holster, and Bitty tumble out of the restaurant ten minutes later, laughing and shoving at each other. Bitty, face flushed, is the first to spot them on the curb. 

He grins at them brightly, says, “Off we go, gentlemen, I was promised drinking games.” 

Shitty stands first, holds out a hand to Jack. He takes it and lets himself be hauled to his feet, follows everyone down the block in the direction of the nearest Stop ‘n Shop. 

Something in his chest loosens as he realizes the night isn’t ruined. The boys are laughing, and Shitty is trying to convince Lardo to join them via text, and for a moment, he forgets what he was upset about.

He breathes easy and lets Shitty buy him a six pack and takes a moment to be grateful that these four people, at least, still hold good opinions of him. 

  
  
  



End file.
